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Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

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Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#111

Post by dylanredm0nd »

izacus wrote: post #101
InsomniacL wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This means many people living in Ireland got less government resources than they would have No it doesn't. Ireland did this deal to benefit from it. What they lost from direct tax in one area they gained in others. Had Ireland not made this deal, it's unlikely it would have become the conduit for Apple profits from around the world. The subject of the ruling contains "concerning tax rulings issued by Ireland in fav…

Can you explain where exactly did Ireland gain benefit from not collecting these taxes?

The jobs provided via Apple, FDI in Ireland, Tax paid by apple staff in Ireland... general spend?

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#112

Post by dtf »

graemep wrote: post #71
Y_Y wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Eire" is a weird exonym. The country this happened in is called Ireland (officially and colloquially). It's a republic and shares the island (also called Ireland) with a non-sovereign country called Northern Ireland. It's often referred to as the Republic of Ireland, which is a fine description, but not the official name. In the Irish language, the name of the country is "Éire", but saying that in English is like sa…

Ireland can also refer to the whole island though, so it can be ambiguous. We have the same problem, even worse, with people calling the EU "Europe".

The diplomatically neutral term is "the island of Ireland" for the whole thing.

"These islands" refers to the British Isles, in the context of Anglo-Irish relations.

It's some fascinating wordplay, born out of the Good Friday Agreement, trying not to step on various people's buttons.

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#113

Post by quonn »

fullspectrumdev wrote: post #96
quonn wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea was that these big companies and the Irish government obey the law.

What’s interesting is the deal Apple got was fine under Irish law at the time. Nobody foresaw how things would pan out literally decades later.

> literally decades later.

So given the time value of money, Apple still has an unfair advantage?

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#114

Post by mytailorisrich »

seydor wrote: post #77
mytailorisrich wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, "move to Ireland" means "home country" becomes Ireland. Obviously. Companies can do that, and in fact they do that. Fiat merged with Peugeot and suddenly the company is headquartered in the Netherlands, not France or Italy, for similar reasons.

In that case the EU would deem the state aid that the company receives is illegal. This is actually what this ruling claims, that Apple received illegal state aid.

I understand but that's not really the point of my comment. This is just the first line that replies in passing to the previous one...

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#115

Post by Y-bar »

linotype wrote: post #78
izacus wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting how in american corpspeak "uncertanty" pretty much always means "our lawyers can't find a way to avoid this law without getting caught" ^^

EU companies dodge and bend rules all the time. See: VW, AirBus, etc.

And they do get their day in the courts as well:

From _today_ in a judgement pretty much identical to the one on Apple/Ireland:

> Commission orders recovery of around €14 million in incompatible German State aid from Frankfurt-Hahn airport and Ryanair

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_...

---

> On Friday, January 31, 2020, courts in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States approved analogous versions of a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) between prosecutors and Airbus that include a combined fine of $3.96 billion for the aircraft manufacturer. The resolution ends multi-year investigations by the French National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (Parquet National Financier or PNF), the U.K. Serious Fraud Office (SFO), and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)

https://www.ropesgray.com/en/insights/alerts/2020/01/four-ye...

> Antitrust: Commission fines car manufacturers €875 million for restricting competition in emission cleaning for new diesel passenger cars

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_...

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#116

Post by SanjayMehta »

Woeps wrote: post #105
SanjayMehta wrote: post #85

I’m confused. So EU runs Ireland’s tax system? What happened to sovereignty? How does this work?

No, the EU checks if the tax systems are fair and held to certain standards. In this case this special deal was only available to a select few companies.

Were these companies selected on the basis on employment numbers or revenue?

AFAIK Apple doesn’t have so many employees in Ireland that would generate enough revenue for a 13B tax bill. So they must have been booking offshore revenue via an Irish subsidiary.

When I buy software licenses here in India I’ve noticed that the billing almost always is in Ireland.

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#117

Post by yieldcrv »

skummetmaelk wrote: post #65
gzer0 wrote: post #50

I found some rather troubling aspects within the ruling itself: 1. Retroactive application of arm's length principle The Court's reliance on the arm's length principle, despite acknowledging it's not required by EU law, is problematic. As stated in paragraph 124: > "Article 107(1) TFEU gives the Commission the right to check whether the level of profit allocated to such branches... corresponds to the level of profit…

There's not much uncertainty for business really. If you're pulling the moves that Apple and other companies pull to "optimize tax", then you are with 100% certainty trying to game the system and violating the spirit of the law.

That doesnt mean regimes we respect should retroactively apply new rules in unpredictable ways

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#118

Post by librasteve »

librasteve wrote: post #97
Y_Y wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Eire" is a weird exonym. The country this happened in is called Ireland (officially and colloquially). It's a republic and shares the island (also called Ireland) with a non-sovereign country called Northern Ireland. It's often referred to as the Republic of Ireland, which is a fine description, but not the official name. In the Irish language, the name of the country is "Éire", but saying that in English is like sa…

will do

btw I think I got the idea that its the official name from the word Éire being stamped on all the coins

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#119

Post by scott_w »

linotype wrote: post #78
izacus wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting how in american corpspeak "uncertanty" pretty much always means "our lawyers can't find a way to avoid this law without getting caught" ^^

EU companies dodge and bend rules all the time. See: VW, AirBus, etc.

And it's wrong when they do it, too.

Re: Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules

#120

Post by piltdownman »

quonn wrote: post #60
csomar wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea was that these big companies will move back to the big centers (Paris/Frankfurt) once they have to pay the same taxes. That didn't happen (surprise) and Ireland is now ending up with a tax deluge and high value tech companies.

The idea was that these big companies and the Irish government obey the law.

All tax treaties and agreements between countries (including intra-EU) are bilateral country to country agreements. Most are refreshed every 3-7 years based on OECD (or EU) recommended standards. Ireland's laws and treatment are 100% compliant.

Rather than competing and reducing their tax rates countries like France prefer to moan, as politically they can’t be seen to favour big bad businesses.

This of course was no problem with the EEC where Germany, France and the other ex-colonial powers made out like bandits selling their coal and steel to Ireland and the CT being paid there.

Enter an English-language dominated SaaS economy from the 90s and they got caught out as they were more interested in domestic economic protectionism than dealing with the realities of a paradigm shift towards tech. We pivoted completely to an information economy and service based economy from a predominately agrarian one. Now have a look at the tech job market in 2024 in Dublin versus Paris, Frankfurt, Berlin, Barcelona etc..

If any one of our EU or the other non EU countries were really dissatisfied with Ireland, they have the right to withdraw at any time.

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